Behadrei Haredim reports that a 24 year old married man will be
indicted today on charges of molesting three girls in Modin Ilit.

According to the report, approximately two weeks ago, the suspect was
arrested a day after molesting a 13-year-old girl in a stairwell.

Upon his arrest, it became clear that the same man had been detained
three weeks earlier for molesting another girl in similar circumstances.
In that case, the parents refused to allow the police to interview
their daughter and the suspect had to be released.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Two young girls from an unregulated school, in a Haredi neighborhood of Jerusalem

Opinion #MeToo in Israel's ultra-Orthodox World

“The guy who attacked me sexually a number of times when I was 11 years old is a married ultra-Orthodox man. I was dressed with extreme modesty. After my bat mitzvah I visited them on Shabbat, and he asked his wife to go to bed and leave me with him. She shouted, ‘She’s a bat mitzvah! You can’t touch her anymore!’

“And why is it impossible to tell and to complain? Ninth-grade girls in a Bais Yaakov school can answer that. The homeroom teacher told them about a student who was attacked in the street and stayed home for a few days to recover. She went to visit her and told her, ‘It’s your fault!’ The student defended herself, after all she observes all the rules and wears very thick stockings. The teacher answered her, ‘Yes, but there’s something about you!’”

That’s what Racheli Bass, a married ultra-Orthodox woman and mother of three who provides emotional therapy and assistance to victims of sexual assault, writes me.

Not everyone is as courageous as Racheli, who agreed to reveal her horrible story. Women I turned to, who I knew had been attacked, said that it’s better to keep quiet, that they aren’t emotionally prepared for exposure. But here are a few real stories and statements – in some the identifying details have been changed at the request of the victims to preserve their safety and privacy – in response to an op-ed by Israel Cohen (“Learn from the ultra-Orthodox how to stop sexual harassment,” Haaretz.com, November 14) that denies the injustices, sexual attacks and harassment in Haredi society, and extols the policy of separation to prevent such behavior.

“I remember my male teacher welcoming me every morning with a blessing and placing his freezing hands inside my sweater and feeling me up, holding me close to him.” (Y., a male graduate of an ultra-Orthodox elementary school and yeshivas)

“I was sitting with an older Hasidic client, who had invited me to advise him about interior design for a new store. He examined me closely and began to ask questions, he misinterpreted my pleasantness: “Do you think I’m good-looking? Isn’t it true that you would like to be with me?” I smiled like an idiot and blushed. Needless to say I didn’t get the job and I didn’t bother to ask for explanations. When my husband tried to understand why, I explained to him that the price I suggested was too expensive for him.” (R., an architect)

“Yesterday I had a conversation with my little sister. She told me about the rape of a friend of hers. An ultra-Orthodox man dragged her behind a truck and raped her, and she didn’t dare to shout because she didn’t know exactly what was happening to her, what he was doing, and mainly she was afraid that if she shouted other people would come and ‘see her’ [body]. She didn’t know what to shout. How can a naïve seminary girl know how to deal with something that has no name? My sister told me about other instances of harassment, men who exposed themselves in front of girls, who didn’t know what the men were doing and why, and what to do about it.” (Natalie Rosenblum)

“I experienced a sexual attack in the family, which continued for years due to the habit of silence and the fact that the family ignored clear signs. When I recently heard about other attacks by the same man, I turned to the police. Rabbis told the complainants to testify, but later changed their minds so that he wouldn’t sit in prison for too long. Complainants were harassed. I was compared to a Nazi and to ISIS, and part of the family is still not speaking to me. At the start of my career I was sexually attacked several times in ultra-Orthodox places of work. I fled at the last moment from an attack by the founder of large charitable organizations in Jerusalem, who after the fact said that it was my fault because I fixed up my hair before leaving work.” (Shifra from Bnei Brak, a seminary graduate)

In the Facebook group I run, “Haredi Feminism,” Cohen’s article aroused a storm. Here are some of the reactions: “There are many reasons why Haredi women didn’t participate in the #MeToo campaign. Not because of what Cohen writes and not because the separated society helps to prevent sexual harassment and assault. The article is infuriating mainly because the Haredi media don’t report on the campaign at all and don’t offer the platform that the secular media gave the complainants. If anything brings on the flood of the Haredi ‘#Me too,’ and it will be a flood of sewage, it will be articles like Cohen’s.” (A.R.)

“Forget the exclusion that Cohen whitewashes so much in the article. But where’s the component of the victims, mainly among yeshiva students, despite and maybe even because of the separation?” (Chavi Blustein, a counselor for brides and married life)

All these are a miniscule sampling of authentic voices from among the public. All these quotes weren’t brought out to prove how sick Haredi society is, since the international #MeToo campaign exposes a human sickness that crosses cultures, ideologies and classes. These stories and quotes are being made public so that Saraleh and Yehuda and Chaimkeh and Menucha and Itamar and Yisrael Meir and Shira and Bracha will feel that they’re not alone and they’re not to blame.

In recent years organizations have begun to work inside the Haredi community, bringing the voices of the male and female victims to public awareness, and they are doing important work. In the Haredi media (the digital media only) they have started to discuss the subject, but for the most part the thundering silence, the fear, the embarrassment and the guilt prevail and reverberate. This has to be lifted, and those who deny the pain and suffering of the victims have to be confronted.

The writer is the founder and co-executive director of the organization Nivharot (Chosen) – Haredi women for representation, equality and a voice.

Yet when she noticed the rating for her most recent book had dropped
to one-star overnight, it wasn’t so funny — especially once she started
reading the user reviews.

“This book is filled with lies,” claimed one.

“Very upsetting,” said another.

“Utter propaganda …” began the next.

Soon the “review war,” as Koffsky called it, spilled over onto her personal Facebook page.

“I think my favorite comment was the one questioning my mental
state,” said Koffsky, who has written more than 30 books for children.

Yes, the target of all this rage is a children’s picture book, Koffsky’s latest, published just in time for Hanukkah.

“Judah Maccabee Goes to the Doctor: A Story for Hanukkah” is about a
young boy named Judah who — spoiler alert! — goes to the doctor. With
cheerful illustrations by Talitha Shipman, Koffsky’s story follows Judah
as he learns to channel the bravery of his Maccabee namesake and get a
scary booster shot, thus protecting his little sister, Hannah, who is
too young to be vaccinated.

“We didn’t do this in order to run into a debate,” said Vicki Weber, a
partner at Behrman House, the 96-year-old educational publisher that
released the book under its Apples & Honey imprint. “We like to use
Jewish life and Jewish views to tell stories that are different, and we
thought this was a really interesting way to show courage in a small
child.”

Yet the book has drawn ire from what is known as the anti-vaxxer movement — an impassioned, small but growing
group that believes vaccinations pose dangerous risks, such as a
long-discredited link to autism. In addition to the barrage of negative
reviews on Amazon, anti-vaxxers have attacked Koffsky personally on her
Instagram account.

“Your book is a brainwashing story by a mental author,” one commenter
wrote. “You’ll be held responsible for all the damages these vaccines
caused to innocent children as a result of your book.”
Weber feels for Koffsky, who also works as an editor and art director
at Behrman House. But at the same time she’s ready to stand her ground.

“I’m not glad that somebody is saying these kinds of miserable things
about a colleague and friend of mine — there’s no place for that,”
Weber said. “But part of me wants to say ‘bring it on … as long as you
spell the title of the book correctly.’”

Koffsky told JTA that she was not surprised by the negative response, though a bit startled by its ferocity.

“I’m sure there are people who have thoughtfully considered that
vaccinations are not for their children for some reason, and I disagree
with them and I don’t think the science supports them,” she said. “Those
are not the people who posted reviews.”

What upsets her, she explained, and what prompted her to write the
book in the first place, is how some parents use Judaism to justify
their stance against immunization. The idea came to her early last year,
when she became aware that some Jewish day school parents — Koffsky is
one at a day school near her home in West Hempstead, New York — were
opting out of vaccinations on religious grounds.

“It’s one thing to say you don’t want to vaccinate your kids because
you have insane beliefs,” said Koffsky, a mother of three. “But to say
‘and I believe this way because of the Torah’ just drove me crazy. I was
really angry because I felt it was such a distortion of Jewish values.”

For the record, the safety and effectiveness of childhood vaccines is
supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the
American Academy of Pediatrics and the overwhelming majority of medical
professionals based on dozens of studies involving millions of children.

And while some haredi Orthodox rabbis have made news for railing against vaccines, there is a large pro-vaccine consensus in the Jewish world as well. The Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America have strongly called on all Jewish parents to
vaccinate their children according to the timetable recommended by
their pediatricians, as has the haredi Agudas Harabonim-Union of
Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

“Halachically, a person is obligated to follow the doctor’s opinion,
especially in matters pertaining to vaccines and other forms of medicine
which prevent illnesses and death,” wrote
Rabbi Sholom Shuchat, a deciser for Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis worldwide,
adding that in the Torah, “when someone does an action which can cause
death, or even refuses to do an action which can prevent death, he is
compared to a murderer.”

Dr. Akiva Turner, director of the doctoral program in health science
at Nova Southeastern University and former communicable disease director
for the Broward County Health Department — and an ordained Orthodox
rabbi — researches religion and health. He points out that while people
often separate science from religion, major rabbinical authorities have
relied on medical science when making their rulings.

Therefore, he explained, those Jewish parents who claim a religious objection are not so different than secular anti-vaxxers.

“If they’re asking for an exemption [on religious grounds] — I don’t
know any other way to put it — they are erring on the science that’s
being used by these rabbinic authorities, who all say that you should
get your child vaccinated,” Turner said.

Nevertheless, there is a noticeable decline in vaccination rates in some religious Jewish communities and a rise in exemptions at certain Jewish day schools. A measles outbreak
in Los Angeles earlier this year centered on the Orthodox Jewish
community, and a 2015 wave of pertussis, or whooping cough, appeared in
the Brooklyn haredi Orthodox communities of Williamsburg and Borough
Park.

“About 90 percent of the cases are among people who are unvaccinated,” Turner said of the outbreaks.

Neither Koffsky nor Weber said they expect the book to change the
minds of hardened anti-vaxxers. Rather, Koffsky hopes to reassure
parents who are vaccinating.

“It’s just a picture book,” she said, “but I want to make them feel good about their choice and communicate that to their kids.”

The kerfuffle has brought the book beyond readers in the Jewish
community. After the first wave of negative online reviews, Koffsky said
she rallied her friends to post reviews in order to get the ratings
back up — and the effort spread far beyond her contacts.

“We are Catholic and not Jewish, but the book is still great for us,”
one five-star reviewer wrote. “It lets [our son] see that others hold
the same values as important.”

A handful of pro-vaccine and science-focused websites — usually not a
popular forum for critiquing children’s Hanukkah books — have weighed
in. A reviewer who blogs as The Vaccine Mom
praised “Judah Maccabee Goes to the Doctor” as a needed addition to
family dialogue and wrote that her young daughter “thought the Hanukkah
story was very interesting. We learned something new!”

Koffsky added she is proud that the message of the book — its Amazon
rating is back above four stars — has reached a wider audience than
expected.

“It feels like kiddush Hashem [sanctifying God],” she said. “These
are Jewish values, and these are universal values, and it feels good to
be part of that conversation.”

Monday, November 27, 2017

The combined market capitalization of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google
is now equivalent to the GDP of India. How did these four companies
come to infiltrate our lives so completely? In a spectacular rant, Scott
Galloway shares insights and eye-opening stats about their dominance
and motivation -- and what happens when a society prizes shareholder
value over everything else. Followed by a Q&A with TED Curator Chris
Anderson.

We were appalled and trembling to hear of the terrible breach
in our camp in the form of concerts featuring singers and chazanim who
sing before men and women in mixed company Rachmono litzlan and even with separate seating, mamash.

Previous gedolei Yisroel totally banned these events - even though there
were none, but in their infinite wisdom they knew that there will be
many - even where there is separate seating (they can't fool us - we
know they sit together in the car). As such we hereby state our combined
ignorant and idiot opinion, which is based on irrefutable daas Torah.

A. Attending these performances is totally prohibited, because we say so
-- even though we forgot to take our pills for two years at least -
could be more - we just don't remember.

B. The prohibition applies to the organizers and the audience, young and
old, middle-aged, senile, people in wheelchairs, people who use cains
and walkers, the hearing impaired, fagelech, men, women, children, shul
candy-men and rebbeim-- regardless of their sexual preferences.

All the more so on the singers and chazanim, who are inducing the masses to sin, mamash - Rachmana litzlan.

C. Newspapers and advertising circulars should not help by advertising
these forbidden events, the transgressors call performances. Even the
Jewish Press should restrain itself, if at all possible.

D. The singers and chazanim who appear before a mixed audience may not
be invited to sing at any wedding or divorce, chap-a-nosh at the
smorgasboard, mooch a free meal, take home the flowers, switch to a
newer Borsalino at the coat-check room, steal a bencher, or take home a
stranger's wife; nor can any event at which they participate be
advertised, including tefillos and so-called kosher events, unsupervised
fress Pesach events; in order to avoid lending a hand to these
transgressors who we consider to be rishaim gemurim, like nothing ever
before in klal Yisroel, ever, ever, aver, erva.

May Hashem Yisborach, in His great mercy and kindness, bring them to do
teshuvah before Him - and us - by supporting Kupat H'air, and may we
merit the eternal Redemption (not the phony Chabad kind), immediately - before the Kolko trial - azuz yimolei sechok peanuts...., vayihee b'yemai Achasvarush....

Signing for the sake of the sanctity, holiness and purity of our people,
with trembling hands, spittle dripping out of our mouths, and with
soiled diapers....

Yehuda Kolko

Lipa Margulies

Ephraim Shapiro

Shea Fishman

Moshe Eisemann

Matis Weinberg

Sholom Tendler

Mordecai Tendler

Aron Tendler

Sheftel Neuberger

Grepsel Hamburger

Avrohom Mondrowitz

Ephraim Bryks

Aron Twerski

Avi Shafran

Marvin Shick

Avrohom Leizerowitz

Heshy Nussbaum

Shlomo Mandel

Yehuda Nussbaum

Simcha Kaufman

Shmuel Kaminetzky

Yaakov Perlow

Yosef Sholom Eliashiv

Gershon Tannenbaum

Moshe Heinemann

Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman

Yaakov Aryeh Alter Chaya

Yissochor Dov Petzel A. Kleiner

Pinchos Nisht-Arein Gegangen

Hertz Frankel

Yitzchak Kaduri

Shmuel Halevi Wosner

Yisroel Hazmana Belsky

Mendel Haganiv Epstein

Moshe Hachazir Finkel

Dovid Ha'truckdriver Cohen

Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz

Moshe Chaim Kurva Ben Gil Arayus

Leibish Flynt

Chaim H. Hefner

Lipa Geldwerth

David(Ben Shmuel)Berkowitz

Lipa Brenner

Baruch Lanner

Chaim Pinchos Sheinberg

Bernard (Berish) Law

C. Yonah Mahoney

Tuvyah Ted Bundy

Tzvi Elimelech Zona

Nissim Karelitz

Dovid Twersky

Shmuel Auerbach

Sholom Klass

Marvin Hier

Israel Singer

Philip Berg

Moshe Sherer

Shabbsai Tzvi

The Rabbis of Baltimore & Ner Israel Rabbinical College agree with above clowns

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

"CBS This Morning" co-hosts Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King are
responding after reports of sexual misconduct allegations against
Charlie Rose. The accusations published in the Washington Post include
unwanted sexual advances, groping and exposing himself to women who
worked for or aspired to work for Rose's PBS program. CBS News has
suspended Rose in light of the accusations.

"Mr. President - Is A Child Molester Better Than A Democrat?" For the answer watch this piece of human garbage.

Confessions Of A Chaim Berlin Yeshiva Graduate

I attended Yeshiva and Mesivtah Chaim Berlin from 1954 to 1966. It almost ruined my life.
Not that I’m complaining. Chaim Berlin is one of the oldest yeshivas
in Brooklyn, established in 1904. It’s one of the most respected Haredi-
Lithuanian yeshivas in the United States and in Israel. Many renowned
rabbis and Talmud scholars have graduated from there. I am not one of
them. I can barely read the Torah in the original Hebrew or the Talmud
in Aramaic.
Now, dear reader, I know what you’re thinking. There must be
something wrong with him. That’s probably true, but it’s a little more
complicated. Let me explain.
Let’s start with a question: What happens when there is a total
mismatch between a boy and the school he’s attending? Obviously, nothing
good. I am a perfect example of that mismatch.
I was born in a displaced persons camp into a family deeply scarred
by the war and its aftermath. My parents and siblings survived by
escaping from Poland to the Soviet Union. When my parents finally came
to America, they spoke only Yiddish and were overwhelmed by this new
society. What saved them was settling in a cloistered, still mainly
Jewish enclave, in Brownsville, Brooklyn. My father, who became Orthodox
later in life, naturally sent me to the most well-known yeshiva in the
neighborhood.

How to explain Chaim Berlin? The actual yeshiva and mesivtah were
basically a preparation to supply students to the Beit Midrash after
graduating. The goal was for as many students as possible to become
rabbis and Talmudic scholars. The actual teaching method at the yeshiva
could be called “late shtetl”. Their method: rote learning accompanied
by an occasional slap in the face. Heaven forbid that they would
actually teach Hebrew grammar or go into any depth into the Torah or
Talmud. For example, the designated Hebrew instructor’s only method of
teaching the language was to photocopy some pages in Hebrew. That was
it. The so-called ‘English Department’ had only one criteria in hiring
teachers: that they could breathe. There was no connection between the
teacher’s expertise, if he had any, and the subject he was asked to
teach. So a social studies teacher could “teach” a chemistry class by
slowly reading from a textbook he didn’t even understand.
Chaim Berlin also didn’t believe in the notion of cleanliness. I, for
example, being a very anxious kid, rarely had an appetite. So I used to
bury the sandwiches my mother gave me for lunch towards the bottom of
my school desk, next to all my seforim [holy books] and
textbooks. But the yeshiva forgot to hire a custodian. So my sandwiches
accumulated in the desks of my class for weeks. No one complained since
everyone thought that smell was normal. Also, the yeshiva didn’t know
much about plumbing; the toilets overflowed frequently and were rarely
fixed. You needed galoshes to walk into the bathroom. As my friend said
much later, the main thing we learned during those years was bladder
control (a very useful skill now at my age).
Chaim Berlin was terrific in their sex education program. I’m
kidding. First of all, there were no girls in any classes, or female
teachers. So we had no idea how to deal with the opposite sex. But not
to worry; one rabbi at the Mesivtah claimed that masturbation was worse
than murder. Now that was all a male teenager needed to hear. For a
second I feared I was a mass murderer. But then I quickly realized that
was crazy talk, since I grew up with memories of the Holocaust, and knew
what real murder meant. But I said nothing. I was too embarrassed.
Chaim Berlin was not equipped to deal with someone like me. I
probably had learning issues in math and language. But I loved to read
and probably my “worst” trait was that I was able to think for myself. I
had great difficulty accepting what was being taught without
explanation. And believe me, the rabbis were non too happy to actually
have to explain anything.
For
example, we began learning Talmud in the fourth grade. We studied it by
rote, as we students merely repeated every line after the rabbi. One of
the first laws we learned was what happens if an ox gores a pregnant
woman. The question was: What responsibility does the owner of the ox
have? I was puzzled and asked why were we learning this, since I never
saw an ox roaming the streets of Pitkin Avenue. The rabbi’s only
response was to slap me hard on the cheek. That was my introduction to
the Talmud.
Chaim Berlin worked for most of my classmates, perhaps because they
didn’t have traumatized parents. Most of my fellow students learned
Hebrew very well because their fathers taught them. It also helped if
you stayed within the community.
But for a lost, fearful child who had ideas of his own, Chaim Berlin was a disaster that took years of therapy to overcome.

An amputated leg, a 600-pound
wrestler, and the great tonsil riot, among other examples of humanity’s
glorious ineptitude, in ‘Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange But True Stories
from the Yiddish Press’

Jews, the Smartest Stupid People on Earth

An amputated leg, a bitten-off penis, a
600-pound wrestler, and the great tonsil riot, among other examples of
humanity’s glorious ineptitude, in ‘Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange But
True Stories from the Yiddish Press’

What the world really needs is a study of dumb Jews, Peter Gay
remarked while disparaging a book about how “the Jewish genius” had, so
the author claimed, invented modernity. Eddy Portnoy in Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange But True Stories From the Yiddish Press has come along to answer Gay’s request. Bad Rabbi
explores the sensational offerings of the Yiddish newspapers in both
America and Eastern Europe, which featured, Portnoy says, “multitudes of
mediocre Jews, many of whom lived on the verge of modernity, yet were
often backward and stupid.” You won’t meet any Einsteins here, but you
will get to know some bad hombres, and some extremely silly ones too.
The bad rabbi of the title is a bit disappointing, but Portnoy’s
archival digging has turned up some rewarding, and bizarre, nuggets from
the Yiddish-speaking world of a century ago.Bad Rabbi contains no stories of piety, scholarship, moneymaking smarts, or it-takes-a-shtetl
wholesomeness. Instead, Portnoy gives us drunks, obese wrestlers,
hopelessly clumsy criminals, and vitriol throwers. (Hurling acid in
someone’s face seems to have been a popular pastime around the turn of
the century, especially in courtroom settings.) From the 1870s on,
Yiddish newspapers explained the world to an eager Jewish audience.
Almost all Yiddish writers were, at one point or another, journalists,
and they often highlighted the salacious and freakish.
Portnoy begins in 1871 with the abortionist Jacob Rosenzweig, who
after a botched operation packed his dead patient into a trunk and tried
to mail her body from New York to Chicago. It got only as far as New
York’s Hudson rail yards, where a railroad agent noticed a strange smell
(it was August) and so caught on to Rosenzweig’s spectacularly bad
idea. Distressingly, during the trial, the jury was forced to view the
victim’s body, which after 10 days had become a “putrid mass.” The
non-Jewish press didn’t much notice the fact that Rosenzweig was a Jew
and his victim a gentile: There were no anti-Semitic undertones to their
coverage. The Rosenzweig case led to a wave of state laws criminalizing
abortion, which had been fully legal up to that point, and copiously
advertised in both Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers.
Rosenzweig’s lack of cleverness was more than matched by Pesach
Rubenstein, one of the most renowned murderers of the 1870s. A peddler
and religious fanatic, Rubenstein had become the close friend, and
possibly lover, of Sara Alexander, a 17-year-old relative who worked as a
housemaid for the family. The deeply observant Rubenstein took her to a
field in East New York where he gouged her with a cigar knife, gashing
her face, throat, and hands as she begged for her life. The family
produced more than a dozen defense witnesses for Rubenstein, but their
alibis comically contradicted one another. O.J.-style, Rubenstein
insisted to the end on his innocence, even going on hunger strike and
calling on the heavens as his witness. He starved himself to death in
his cell before he could be hanged.

Portnoy describes brief episodes of collective madness like “the
great tonsil riot of 1906,” when a rabid mob of 50,000 Jewish mothers
stormed Lower East Side schools, convinced that doctors were cutting the
throats of their children. The Yiddish daily Varhayt noted
that few of the mothers could read the schools’ permission slips. All
they knew was that kids were coming home from school drooling blood and
moaning that doctors had cut into their throats. The riot’s nadir
occurred when a telephone repairman with pliers hanging from his belt
was mistaken for a doctor and nearly lynched by the women. Some might
think this proves immigrant Jews were a hot-tempered crew ready to
explode at the slightest provocation. But Portnoy notes that New York’s
linguistic and cultural barriers made “heading into the streets with
your neighbors and a rolling pin” a more likely means of protest than,
say, lodging a complaint with City Hall.

Portnoy’s most illustrious Jewish alcoholic is Naftali Herz Imber, a
poet and bohemian ne’er-do-well with spiritualist pretensions. In 1897
Imber prophesied that in 50 years a Jewish state would come into being
by warfare in Palestine. In the future, he said, the sun would be used
to heat houses, and California wines would be among the world’s best.
Unfortunately, he also predicted that Kansas and other western states
would secede from the union, that California would split in two, with
one capital in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles, and that the
“Manhattan empire” of the East Coast would go to war with Canada. A
heartfelt Zionist, Imber wrote a poem titled Ha-Tikvah that
became the national anthem of Israel. The longhaired, unruly Imber was
booted from at least one Zionist congress for drunkenness, but they
still sang his song, he remarked with satisfaction.

Portnoy gives an account of the strife between observant and secular Jews over Yom Kippur.
From the mid-1880s on, festive Yom Kippur dances organized by
anarchists and other rebels were the rage among freethinking Jews in
both Poland and America. The anti-fasting parties were so popular that
in 1907 an editorial in the socialist Varhayt asked its readers to be considerate of those Jews who wished to observe the chag
in the traditional way. Fistfights between the religious and the
secular often erupted on the holiest day of the year. A typical New York Timesheadline on Yom Kippur was “Mob of Hebrews Again Attacks Diners in Division Street” (Sept. 27, 1898).

Not surprisingly, Shabbat became a flashpoint for the ongoing
struggle between observant and nonreligious Jews. A gang of enforcers
called the shomrei-shabbos, “sabbath keepers,” patrolled the
streets of Warsaw and other cities, occasionally assaulting Jews who
were spotted smoking cigarettes or keeping their stores open on Shabbat.
For such zealots, trading punches, and worse, was an acceptable form of
work on the day of rest. In 1935, the shomrei-shabbos even
resorted to murder in the Praga neighborhood of Warsaw, killing several
shopkeepers who were determined to do business on Shabbat.

Portnoy spends some time on the story of Martin (Blimp) Levy, a professional wrestler who in his heyday
weighed more than 600 pounds. Levy, who started his career in 1937,
was, according to his manager, “a freak with class.” He was flexible,
even agile: Bad Rabbi contains a photo of him doing the splits.
Levi was also a bona fide chick magnet. He was married at least three
times, always to young, svelte women. (In one divorce case, Levy
testified that his spouse physically abused him; the judge ruled in his
favor.) In 1946 he married an 18-year-old fan. That same year, he was
barred from wrestling in the United States because doctors feared he
would drop dead in the ring. A few years later he was reduced to playing
the fat man in a circus. Levy, who ended up weighing 900 pounds, died
at age 56 in an Alabama motel.

One of Bad Rabbi’s gems is a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer,
writing under the pen name Gimel Kuper. Bashevis loved to recount the
careers of Warsaw crooks and connivers, among them the team of Puny
Khane and Shimshon Gramophone. Khane mimes an epileptic fit in the
streets, and Shimshon, after rescuing her, begs the crowd for money,
explaining that she has been hungry for days. When they go a few blocks
over to repeat the same stunt, a bystander yells at them, “You just had a
fit in that street over there!” Khane fights back with “I can’t have
more than one attack? I’m not allowed?” Eventually, Khane and Shimshon
move on to suicide: she threatens to jump from a building, screaming
“Let me die!” while Shimshon begs her not to do it, the aim being to
extract money from the sympathetic crowd below. When this trick is
exposed, Krochmalna Street takes its revenge: they force Khane to jump
or else “we’ll come up there and throw you off ourselves.” Her leg
broken in the fall, Khane laments her “tragedy” on the way to the
hospital: “Who knows if I’ll ever again be able to earn money as a
jumper?”

While we’re on the subject of suicide, consider this headline from Moment
(April 1927): “The Anatomical Institute Returns the Body of a Jewish
Suicide Because Her Bones Are Worthless” (17-year-old Rokhl Weinstein,
dying of tuberculosis, wanted to will her body to science). Also from Moment,
March 1933: A young man decided to kill himself by jumping out of the
window of the Burial Society so that they could get to him faster. “The
reason for his suicide was unemployment,” the paper reported: a Jewish
joke for the ages, and proof, if any is still needed, that black humor
has a firm basis in reality.

An amputated leg thrown into the yard of
the Burial Society by a worker who lacked the money to bury it in the
cemetery. An 11-year-old girl sent from Pinsk to Warsaw to purchase “two
dark, hairy girls” for a brothel. A “university” for thieves run by
Warsaw’s Fagin-like Blind Yankl. A man who demands a divorce because his
wife refuses to be a Marxist. Two couples who want to divorce so they
can swap spouses. Racy and repellent in equal measure, the Yiddish press
showed just how worldly the people of the book could get when they
weren’t being respectable, responsible, or thoughtful. Their sorrows and
delights were, like those of all people anywhere, profound but also, in
their way, rather stupid.
***

1917 was a year of momentous
events for the world and for the Jewish people. It was the year when the
Balfour Declaration was issued by Great Britain and the year of
America’s entry into World War I. It was also the year that the
Bolsheviks came to power in Russia and created the first Communist
government and society in the world.

Communism
was messianic vision incarnate. It was the ultimate utopian dream
realized. It promised prosperity for all, the abolition of war and
bigotry, and the end of the exploitation of the working class, and a
society where no one would own anything privately but everyone would own
everything collectively.

Its “bible”
consisted of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with an
overlay of commentary and dicta by Lenin. A small group of hardened
violent revolutionaries hijacked a country of over one-hundred million
and immediately began killing those who it suspected of not being true
believers in the Communist dream.

Lenin
famously said: “One cannot make a successful revolution without a
firing squad,” and he was a man of his word. The violence used in
enforcing Communist rule created a civil war that lasted for years and
consumed hundreds of thousands of lives. But the Communists eventually
prevailed and the Soviet Union, as Russia was now to be called, became
the workers’ paradise and the wave of the future for humankind
generally.

Communism
was never intended to be limited to Russia alone but rather it was an
international movement that promised to remove all nationalistic
territorial borders and all religious differences since there would only
be enforced atheism in the Communist new world.

The toll of
human lives over the past century in countries under Communist rule has
been horrendous. Between Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pat, Fidel
Castro, etc. it easily surpasses one-hundred million. In spite of this
tremendous cost, the longed for paradise never quite arrived. The main
Communist states, Russia and China, have long since abandoned the
nonsense of Marxian economic theory in order to survive. All states that
clung to Marxist theology have failed and failed miserably.

Communism
became and to a great extent still remains the engine of anti-Israel and
anti-Semitism on the world, especially in academia and other befuddled
islands of Leftist belief. What makes this so ironic and troublesome is
the fact that a great many Jews in past generations believed in Marxist
theory and marched militantly under the red banner.

Many Jews
were seduced by the messianic aspect of Communism and its pronounced aim
of ending bigotry amongst human societies. But reality intervened and
reengineering human nature proved to be much more difficult than the
Communist theoreticians ever imagined. So, more terror had to be invoked
to reach the unreachable goal of utopianism. The system collapsed in a
welter of poverty, inefficiency and state sponsored murder. A century
later we are able to look back and wonder how a world could have gone so
mad for so long and ignored the realities and followed the false
prophets.

History is a
brutal teacher. It does not support false doctrines and eventually
exposes all of the weaknesses that are part of any and all human
propositions. But history is too late to restore the lives and fortunes
of those ruined by Communism over the past century. The professors in
the Western world’s universities who continue to spew the Communist line
of thought do a great disservice to their mostly naïve students.

The history
of Communism as it really existed over the past century should be
enough to make any rational thinking person understand its failure and
falsehood. Instead it is often presented as a truth whose time will yet
come and its utopian dream is simply waiting around the corner of human
experience to be realized. This is especially important regarding the
Jewish left that has become increasingly and belligerently anti-Israel
and anti- Jewish traditional values and life style.

After a century of Communist rule and
unparalleled human destruction, an honest and hard look backwards at the
history of Communism over the past century is certainly in order. There
are over one hundred-million lives and souls that demand at least this
from us.

Jews and Communism

Communism was committed to equal rights for Jews, while at
the same time opposing Jewish nationhood. Communists rejected Judaism,
along with all other religions, as an “opiate of the masses,” and
opposed Zionism, Bundism, and other forms of what Communists regarded as
Jewish nationalism. Nevertheless, many people associated Jews with
communism. Indeed, such different political figures as Winston Churchill
and Adolf Hitler, mortal enemies in World War II, seemed to share the
view that communism was somehow a Jewish conspiracy. Shortly after the
Russian Revolution, Winston Churchill wrote, “The international Jews.
The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up
among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on
account of their race. . . . This world-wide conspiracy for the
overthrow of civilization, this band from the underworld . . . have
gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become
practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire” (Illustrated Sunday Herald,
London, 8 February 1920). Adolf Hitler, who regularly ranted against
Jews and Bolsheviks, wrote, “In Russian Bolshevism we see the attempt
undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world
domination. . . . Marxism systematically plans to hand the world to the
Jews.”

Major Jewish foundations pledge to upgrade protections against child abuse

(JNS.org) Four major U.S. Jewish foundations have pledged to require
youth-serving organizations that they support to implement policies that
will bolster protections against sexual abuse of children in their
care.

In
an initiative facilitated by Los Angeles-based Jumpstart Labs, The
Samuel Bronfman Foundation, Leichtag Foundation, Ruderman Family
Foundation, and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation this
month signed the Child Safety Pledge, which upgrades protections against
child sexual abuse in Jewish youth programs.

A “Child Safety First” report
published by Jumpstart this year identified gaps in organizational
awareness at Jewish day schools and camps that could create
vulnerabilities for sexual predators to exploit.

“The prevention
and treatment of child abuse has been a focus of our foundation for more
than 30 years, in Oklahoma, in Israel and beyond,” said Sanford R.
Cardin, president of the Oklahoma-based Schusterman Family Foundation.

“We
adopted the pledge because we believe there is nothing more important
than ensuring the safety, security and dignity of all children. We
welcome the opportunity to engage other funders in this vitally
important work,” he said.

More than 20 major Jewish foundations
and philanthropists are currently engaged with Jumpstart to explore
adoption of the pledge.

“Effective prevention, training,
detection, and response not only helps shield children from sexual abuse
but also protects them from other threats to their physical and
emotional well-being,” said Charlene Seidle, executive vice president of
the Leichtag Foundation.

Nice Jewish Girls Raped in Israel #MeToo

Advertisement
from Taglit Birthright Israel. Words say “Let’s Go #HelloIsrael.” Photo
background is a group of people in swimsuits standing in water with
their hands up.

I
was raped by a Jewish Israeli man. I was 21. He was a friend that I met
on an organized trip for young American Jews to volunteer their time in
Israel. When I went to the Israeli police to report it, the officer
accused me of lying, saying why should they believe a foreigner like me
over the Israeli solider who raped me.

Rape is not uncommon for American Jewish women like me when visiting Israel. There are countless stories like this and this,
and so many more cases of women that have not shared their story
publicly. The American Jewish community encourages us to go to Israel
and connect to our “roots” without acknowledging that we are targets.
They have no resources for us, nor do they even acknowledge the problem.
I for one, will not be silent anymore.

Targets for Rape

Foreign
women in Israeli media are often portrayed as easy, especially blonde
Americans like me. It is no wonder that when Israeli men meet us, they
may think that we are interested in a sexual encounter.

The program I participated in used Jewish women volunteers to “raise the morale” of young Israeli men soldiers according to the madricha
(or guide leader) of my trip. I was often assigned to make coffee and
tea, and when I requested real work to do, that’s when she explained my
role, inviting me to just hang out with the men.

When
Jewish women are brought for trips to Israel by Jewish organizations,
never is any training provided on sexual assault. Safety is discussed
solely in terms of terrorism. We are told that the only danger comes
from Palestinians and that Israelis, especially soldiers are there to
protect us. Often, we are told that Israel is safer than the United
States because everyone is Jewish. You can go out, you can buy alcohol
legally at age 18. We aren’t even taught about cultural differences like
when an Israeli man invites you for coffee, he means sex.

In these ways, Jewish women are set up to be raped by programs like Birthright Israel that bring diaspora Jews to Israel.

Take Action to Reduce Assault

Logo of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers

Jewish
organizations that run Israel trips should talk about sexual assault.
Participants should be given resources in case anything happens to them,
including the Israeli rape crisis hotline number 1202 and in the United
States (800) 656-HOPE.

Rape
is an issue in the Jewish community, as it is in every community. To be
silent, is to be complacent in the sexual assault of Jewish women. All Jewish organizations should talk about sexual assault, and not just those organizing trips to Israel. Jewish organizations in the U.S. and around the world should support the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
I hope that my coming forward will give space for other survivors to
share their stories and encourage people to believe survivors when they
come forward. I hope this starts a conversation in my community about
sexual assault.

Leiter has also asserted that the “end game” of the gay rights
movement is “child molestation.” (No,
he has no decency, which is presumably why he feels the need to put “decency”
in the name of his organization.) “They are
after our kids,” says Leiter; “they
are after the bibles and guns that Americans cling to but they are also after
us and after our kids.” He also warned that gay rights advocates “will not rest until all of their opposition
is totally eliminated,” but fortunately assured us that they will ultimately
lose, because “the Lord will vanquish
evil.” Apparently, this is a recurring theme; also in connection with
blaiming Hurricane Sandy on the gays, Leiter said that the “LGBT radical homosexualist movement”
will increase child abuse by giving molesters a “license to victimize” children and even “a certain degree of diplomatic immunity.”

"When someone like Barry Freundel violates you, you aren’t just robbed of
your dignity and your safety. You are also robbed of your faith and,
very often, of your religious community, which can view you as the real
betrayer of the faith for speaking out."

Roy Moore Reminds Me of My Rabbi

In
2014, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Rabbi
Barry Freundel led the congregation of his Washington synagogue in
pursuit of humble repentance before God. Ten days later, he was arrested
and charged with dozens of counts of voyeurism. Ultimately, the rabbi
was accused of having surreptitiously videotaped more than 150 women on hidden cameras in the bathroom of the mikvah, the ritual bath.

That
bath, adjacent to the synagogue, was where I immersed myself upon
completing my conversion to Orthodox Judaism in 2010. It turned out that
this clergyman I trusted had set up a camera inside a clock radio that
taped me and other women as we undressed. His fall became one of the
biggest stories in the Jewish world that year.

In
the past few days, in the wake of the accusations that Roy Moore, the
ostentatiously religious Republican running for Senate in Alabama,
sexually assaulted teenage girls, the case of Barry Freundel is all I
can think about.

There
is something particularly insidious about being victimized by a man who
claims to be righteous. When someone like Barry Freundel violates you,
you aren’t just robbed of your dignity and your safety. You are also
robbed of your faith and, very often, of your religious community, which
can view you as the real betrayer of the faith for speaking out.

At least that’s what happened to me.

When
I was introduced to Rabbi Freundel in 2009, I was 23 and eager to
become officially Jewish. He was one of the most prominent modern
Orthodox rabbis in the country, in large part because he had settled a
turf war between the Israeli rabbinate and diaspora authorities over the
validity of American conversions. He was the gatekeeper for conversions
nationally and had a monopoly on conversions in Washington.

One
morning several years after my conversion had been completed, a friend
emailed with a short news item that my rabbi — whose name was still on
my holiday card list — had been arrested. In an instant, all of the
strangest moments of my conversion experience made sense.

I
was one of only four women to come forward and tell their stories, and
because of my public role as a writer, I became his most well-known
victim. I drove from my home in New Jersey with my toddler and newborn
to speak at his sentencing hearing in 2015 in Washington, where he was
sent to more than six years in prison.

It’s
hard to describe the depth of my feeling of betrayal. As a convert, I
wasn’t just another student of Rabbi Freundel. My faith and practice —
my Judaism — was shaped by his words, deeds and thought. For those of us
victimized by trusted religious leaders, every day is a struggle to
disentangle our negative associations of beautiful rituals from the ugly
abusers who taught us about their meaning.

An
Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Freundel was fixated on the minutiae of Jewish law.
He drilled his converts in the proper blessings to say over a banana or
a pretzel, and the order in which they should be recited should we
happen to eat both at the same meal. This kind of knowledge was the
bedrock of my conversion experience. But how could I continue to make
myself care about such details when it became clear that the man who
taught them to me valued knowing the blessing for a specific food group
over behaving like a decent human being?

Despite
having grown up as a Jew (my father was Jewish, but according to
Orthodox law only the children of Jewish mothers are Jewish), there were
many aspects of observant Jewish life that were new to me until the
year I spent converting. The foundation of so much of my religious
practice is inextricably tied to that period of my life, and thus, to
Rabbi Freundel. I have not been to services in years because the tunes
sung on Shabbat remind me so much of him.

Every
public victim of a famous sexual predator must endure uncomfortable
conversations with strangers and, thanks to the internet, never knowing
if the person you’ve just met already knows your story. But when you
accuse a religious figure, there’s a whole other kind of discomfort, one
that comes from the friends, family members and other religious leaders
who consider speaking out about a religious crime as airing dirty
laundry for the entire world to see.

While
Rabbi Freundel had few defenders in the Jewish community after his
fall, there were plenty of people — fellow rabbis included — who very
quickly made light of him, made him into a punch line, in the process
minimizing his crime. Others thought his prison sentence was overkill —
after all, we hadn’t been physically assaulted.

A
significant number of friends, relatives and religious leaders have
never once mentioned the case to me, despite my role as its most public
victim. Orthodox Jews already face an uphill battle in the modern world,
they say, and drawing attention to these sordid stories makes that hill
that much steeper. These people also prefer not acknowledging what
happened to me and so many other women because it’s more comfortable to
pretend it never happened.

I
too once felt that way. I preferred not to see the abuses in the
community I had voluntarily joined as an adult because witnessing my
community’s willful blindness to those abuses could send me over the
edge. Being the victim of a sexual crime stripped me of that luxury.

In
a strange way, having the crime committed against me captured on tape
was a blessing: Prosecutors noted that Rabbi Freundel could clearly be
seen setting up the camera and taking it down. Nobody could attach the
qualifier “if true” to my charges. The evidence unearthed by the police
was irrefutable.

For
Roy Moore’s accusers, who say they were preyed upon 40 years ago when
they were 14 to 18 years old, hard evidence like this does not exist,
and so they face the pain not only of coming forward, but also of being
disbelieved and disparaged. Mr. Moore says he doesn’t even know Beverly
Young Nelson, who accused him on Monday of assaulting her when she was
16, never mind the fact that it appears he signed her yearbook.

In the meantime, Mr. Moore’s wife has posted a letter signed by 50 pastors, written during the primary season. (Though some of those pastors are saying that they do not, in fact, support Mr. Moore.)
“We are ready to join the fight and send a bold message to Washington:
dishonesty, fear of man and immorality are an affront to our convictions
and our Savior and we won’t put up with it any longer,” the letter
says. “We urge you to join us at the polls to cast your vote for Roy
Moore.”

For
these believers, losing Mr. Moore means losing an outspoken voice for
traditional Christian values. He rose to prominence in the evangelical
world for giving up his bench as a judge not once, but twice, for
placing his religious beliefs ahead of his judicial duties. Last month
The Washington Post reported on a poem
Mr. Moore recited at a rally at a Baptist Church: “You think that God’s
not angry that this land is a moral slum? How much longer will it be
before his judgment comes?”

His
defenders argue that not voting for Mr. Moore, and therefore losing a
Republican Senate seat and possibly control of the Senate, could lead to
worse outcomes for Christians than simply holding their noses and
electing him to office.

They
could not be more mistaken. The damage that will be done to the
Republican brand and those Christians who watch their religious leaders
stand by Mr. Moore will be irreversible. If he wins, the Republicans may
have a reliably conservative vote in the Senate, but one thing is
guaranteed: Religious leaders who defend him risk their flock being
infected with the same disenchantment I was after the arrest of my
rabbi.

Religious
leaders often fret that such creeping faithlessness puts society at
risk more than any political ideology. As prominent evangelical put it
in a 2006 Washington Times column:
“Our peace and happiness as well as our prosperity depend not on any
political party or any great leader, but rather upon our return as a
nation to faith in Almighty God.”

It’s a lovely message, but one that’s too often discredited by its messengers. The man who wrote that column? Roy Moore.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

From Milwaukee to Kiryas Joel: Following Medicaid millions made on urine tests

KIRYAS JOEL, N.Y. — Abe Freund's home on Acres Road in Kiryas Joel,
New York, doesn't seem much different, at first glance, from a number of
other houses on the street. It has tan siding, like many of the other
residences, and a children's play set out front.

Then you notice the nice extension to the side of the house, with the
good-looking windows and high trees at the property line. It's a
spacious home, but it's dwarfed by the mansion where Abe's son, Isaac,
lives on Schunnemunk Road in Kiryas Joel.

Kiryas Joel is considered one of the poorest communities in the
nation, with one-income households and large numbers of children, per
family.

The community was created in 1977 by the former grand rebbe of the
Satmar Hasidic Orthodox Jewish sect, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. More than 40
percent of the families rely on the federal government for food stamps.

But the U.S. government says Abe Freund is rich, in part, because of
an alleged Medicaid scheme he carried out 885 miles away in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.

Court papers filed by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of
Wisconsin said Abe Freund made more than $7 million dollars in Medicaid
reimbursements, between 2011 and 2014, on the backs of substance abusers
who came to his Acacia Mental Health clinic in Milwaukee for
counseling.

Most of that money was made on unnecessary urine tests, the
government said, with Freund accused of raking in $230 per screening
instead of the customary $20. The reimbursements went as high $474.66
per test, after Freund's lab affiliate invested in a new machine.

Prosecutors said Freund's clinic also charged Medicaid hundreds of
thousands of dollars for psychiatric services performed by doctors based
in Israel, via teleconferencing.

Freund denied the charges in papers filed in April 2017.

Yet he closed the clinic in June 2017.

And that's where WITI — PIX11's sister station in Milwaukee — came in.

One of Freund's former employees at the clinic contacted
investigative reporter, Bryan Polcyn, and said she was concerned a new
clinic opened at the site — Achievement Associates — was being run by
many of the same people that worked under Freund.

"They're doing exactly the same thing," the woman said, asking that her identity be masked. "They have the same clients."

Polcyn's team photographed a meeting, shortly after the clinic
closed, between Abe Freund and Dr. Neena Florsheim, who had been
administrator at some Achievement Associates clinics. She later told
Polcyn she had sold her interest in the site on Fond du Lac Avenue to
Netanel Friedman. He's listed as the new owner of the new clinic.
Friedman also lives up the street from Abe Freund — on Acres Road — in
Kiryas Joel, New York.

The new clinic also houses a urine testing lab called Care Tox, Inc.,
which is owned by Isaac Freund of Kiryas Joel, New York, Abe's son.

PIX11 paid three visits to Kiryas Joel, and we didn't see Abe
Freund's Jeep Cherokee parked in his driveway, even before Friday
Sabbath. When we knocked on the door, which was open, an angry man came
running through the large dining room, yelling about our camera, "What
are you doing? Shut it off!"

We also saw the palatial home, built in 2014, where Abe's son, Isaac, lives on Schunnemunk Road.
The massive property is 11,500 square feet and the real estate site,
Zillow, said it has 11 bedrooms and nine bathrooms. There's a long,
impressive walkway, with a beautiful, French-style door leading to a
second floor balcony. The mansion has many large windows on all sides of
it.

PIX11 was told we could find Isaac Freund's family by ringing a rear
buzzer. A woman who answered told us "No cameras," and closed the door
when we said we wanted to ask Isaac Freund about the Care Tox lab in
Milwaukee.

An Orthodox man who told us he works in an office at Isaac's home
remarked, "Do you think I care about other people's money? I care about
myself and my money."

There are precedents for federal prosecutors trying to retrieve
Medicaid money. One of the nation's largest labs — Millenium in San
Diego, California — agreed to pay the government $256 million under the
False Claims Act, to settle a government lawsuit that accused Millenium
of drug screening fraud, among other abuses.

The former Acacia Mental Health clinic employee in Milwaukee said
many of the clients seeking services there were taking Suboxone to
combat a heroin addiction.

Federal prosecutors said Freund's clinic was getting 99 percent of
the Medicaid reimbursements in Wisconsin for substance abuse and mental
health services.

"He saw an opportunity here in Milwaukee, and he cornered it," the
ex-employee said. "At the end of the day, these people are being taken
advantage of and the taxpayers are paying for it, as well."

Tendler-Like Teacher Says He Only Pursued Students After School!

World's Greatest Criminal Mugshots!

If Your Child Gets Raped - Go First To Your Rabbi - די באַסטערדז!

For My Israeli Readers! צפייה ביקורתית של יהדות אורתודוקסית

CLICK!

Mazel Tov - Rabbi Hershel Schachter!

CLICK ABOVE PHOTO! Rabbi Moshe Feinstein states the very marriage of a gentile woman to a non observant Jew, is equivalent to an open declaration that she will not observe the precepts. This is so, because it is highly unlikely that the gentile member of such a union, will be more committed to Judaism than her remiss Jewish husband (certainly when they are living together prior to their marriage). Unlike mental or tacit negations, explains Rav Feinstein, open declarations do invalidate conversions. When such cases appear before a rabbinical court, its members actually become witnesses to an acceptance declaration that is not sincere. Therefore, it is no longer a tacit insincerity, but rather an obvious one. As such, they are forbidden to sanction the conversion. Regardless of what this Jewish court may declare, the conversion is invalid and the person is not deemed a member of the Jewish nation. In Iggros Moshe, Letters of Moshe (Yoreh De’ah, no. 157), he writes that “According to the Law, it is certain that one who converts for the sake of marriage, does not intend to keep the commandments, and is not a proselyte at all.”

The Tendler Disease in the News - Again!

CLICK!

Child Molestor is Castrated in Plea Deal!

CLICK ON CUT 'EM OFF TENDLER!

We Are In A Time When The Sheep May No Longer Trust The Shepherds!

CLICK!

Tendler Country - Ex - High School Principal Gets 8 Years For Molesting Students!

New Square Appoints Vaad To Deal With Sexual Abuse!

Lakewood Kollel Opens In Senegal!

Scandals Tests Trust in Leadership!

Rabbi Matt Salomon Offers The Pope His Help!

CLICK ON PHOTO!

Oy! Does He Have A Headache!

CLICK ON YOSEL!

Child Abuse - Chipping Away At The Wall Of Silence!

CLICK ON BRIDGE - FOR SALE AT THE AGUDATH ISRAEL!

Rav Yosef Blau Shlita

***CLICK ON PHOTO!*** "Batei Din in our times are not effective in dealing with criminal behavior. Lacking the investigative arm of the police and having restrictive standards of testimony they can not establish guilt. When the culprit is charismatic, he can often get protégés who feel indebted to him to lie to the Beis Din. It takes years before those who have been abused as youngsters to openly face their abuser."

Kolko's Office Sign - Auctioned On eBay!

I'm a bit concerned about Ehud - he can't seem to keep his hands off of me!

Ehud asked me to pardon him!

Looks like George has been hangin' with Bill Clinton!

I look into your eyes --- and I see a rotten crook!

Did you hear the one about the rabbi & the priest? Rabbi Kolko penetrated the priest (oh father)...